Entries tagged with “Worldwide Wednesday”

Feb 06, 2025

Worldwide Monthly Roundup: Taiwan Carries Out First Execution in Five Years; Singapore Cracks Down on Abolition Group; Iranian Prisoners Continue Peaceful Abolition Protest as at Least 87 Executed in January

On January 16, 2025, Taiwan car­ried out its first exe­cu­tion since April 2020. Huang Linkai, who was sen­tenced to death in 2017 for the 2013 mur­ders of his ex-girl­friend and her moth­er, was exe­cut­ed at the Taipei Detention Center. Although Mr. Huang’s attor­ney filed a last-minute appeal, the execution…

Dec 04, 2024

Worldwide Monthly Roundup: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Vietnam

According to num­bers report­ed by Agence France-Presse, Saudi Arabia exe­cut­ed 303 peo­ple in 2024 — the nation’s high­est ever total, and cur­rent­ly the sec­ond high­est known exe­cu­tion total world­wide for this year. November alone saw the exe­cu­tion of more than 100 for­eign nation­als, near­ly triple the num­ber in each of the past two years. UN human rights experts expressed con­cern fol­low­ing the December 3 exe­cu­tion of three Egyptian nation­als, call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to halt the pending…

Nov 06, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam

According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), October saw the high­est month­ly exe­cu­tion total in Iran since 2007, when the orga­ni­za­tion began doc­u­ment­ing exe­cu­tions. There were at least 166 exe­cu­tions last month, bring­ing the year­ly total to 651 exe­cu­tions over the past 10 months. Of the October exe­cu­tions iden­ti­fied by IHRNGO, only 12%, or 20 exe­cu­tions, were report­ed by offi­cial sources. Eleven Baluch and nine Kurdish peo­ple were among those executed.

Oct 02, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, United States, and Vietnam

On September 13, 2024, 37 peo­ple, includ­ing three Americans, who were​“charged with ter­ror­ism, mur­der, crim­i­nal asso­ci­a­tion and ille­gal pos­ses­sion of weapons, among oth­er charges” for their par­tic­i­pa­tion in an attempt­ed coup in May were con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by a mil­i­tary court. Richard Bondo, lawyer for the three Americans, filed an appeal on Tuesday, September 17, 2024. Mr. Bondo argues that since the DRC is a mem­ber of the Treaty of Rome, the…

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Sep 04, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Somalia

The Aprajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, which out­lines the death penal­ty for rape result­ing in the victim’s death or​“veg­e­ta­tive state,” was adopt­ed by the West Bengal gov­ern­ment in east­ern India on September 3, 2024. Under inter­na­tion­al law, it is unlaw­ful to pre­scribe the death penal­ty for a crime not meet­ing the​“most seri­ous” crime (e.g., inten­tion­al…

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Aug 07, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Belarus, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore

30-year-old German nation­al Rico Krieger, who was sen­tenced to death on six charges relat­ed to ter­ror­ism, espi­onage, and mer­ce­nary activ­i­ty, was par­doned by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on July 30, 2024, there­by con­vert­ing his death sen­tence to a life prison term. On August 1, Mr. Krieger was sub­se­quent­ly released dur­ing the largest pris­on­er exchange since the Cold War, accord­ing to The Guardian. Eight Russian pris­on­ers were released from Western…

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Jul 10, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Tanzania

On June 21, 2024, China announced that courts, pros­e­cu­tors, pub­lic, and state bod­ies should use the death penal­ty against Taiwan sep­a­ratists. The state-run Xinhua news agency report­ed that the new guide­lines rec­om­mend​“severe­ly punish[ing] Taiwan inde­pen­dence diehards for split­ting the coun­try and incit­ing seces­sion crimes in accor­dance with the law, and res­olute­ly defend nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, uni­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty.” Critics say that the vagueness…

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Jun 05, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe

On May 7, 2024, Harm Reduction International (HRI) released a spe­cial glob­al overview report on the use of the death penal­ty for drug offens­es, which is a vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law because drug offens­es do not meet the ​“most seri­ous” crimes thresh­old. HRI found that by the end of 2023, there were 34 coun­tries which still retained the death penal­ty for drug-relat­ed offens­es; Pakistan was the only coun­try to recent­ly elim­i­nate the death penal­ty for such offens­es – the first coun­try in more…

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May 01, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Uganda, United States, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe

Missouri’s April 9th exe­cu­tion of Brian Dorsey, despite wide­spread sup­port for his clemen­cy, once again gar­nered con­dem­na­tion from the European Union, which described it as a​“inhu­man and degrad­ing prac­tice.” The EU’s state­ment high­light­ed the lack of the death penal­ty as a deter­rent and the irre­versibil­i­ty of the pun­ish­ment, not­ing that 197 death-sen­­tenced pris­on­ers have been exon­er­at­ed.​“The EU con­tin­ues to call for the uni­ver­sal abo­li­tion of the death…

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Apr 03, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and United States

Georgia’s exe­cu­tion of Willie Pye – the state’s first in more than four years – gar­nered crit­i­cism from the European Union.​“Although the European Union and its 27 Member States oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in all cir­cum­stances, we are espe­cial­ly con­cerned about the sched­uled exe­cu­tion of Mr. Pye giv­en his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and issues regard­ing the qual­i­ty of his legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” said the EU’s let­ter to the state’s Board of Pardons and Parole in…

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Mar 06, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Afghanistan, China, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United States, Vietnam, Yemen, and Zimbabwe

In the after­math of Idaho’s failed exe­cu­tion of Thomas Creech and Texas’ exe­cu­tion of Ivan Cantu on February 28, the European Union released a state­ment express­ing its regret and reit­er­at­ing its unequiv­o­cal oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty.. “[The death penal­ty] is a vio­la­tion of the right to life and fails to act as a deter­rent to crime. It rep­re­sents the ulti­mate pun­ish­ment that makes mis­car­riages of jus­tice irre­versible,” said the state­ment. “[W]e are concerned…

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Methods of Execution

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Feb 07, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Ghana, Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United States, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe

The January 25, 2024 exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Smith in the state of Alabama with nitro­gen gas received wide­spread inter­na­tion­al con­dem­na­tion. The European Union reit­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty and called the exe­cu­tion method a​“par­tic­u­lar­ly cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment.” The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stat­ed:​“I deeply regret the exe­cu­tion of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama despite seri­ous con­cerns that this…

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Jan 24, 2024

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Japan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Yemen

The University of Oxford Death Penalty Research Unit, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with sev­er­al human rights non­prof­its, recent­ly launched a data­base of for­eign nation­als sen­tenced to death or exe­cut­ed from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2021 in Asia and the Middle East. They found that Saudi Arabia leads the Middle East in sen­tenc­ing for­eign nation­als to death (385 peo­ple) and drug-traf­­fick­­ing (283), close­ly fol­lowed by mur­der (257), are the top crimes for which foreign…

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Dec 06, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Israel, Iran, Malaysia, Philippines, Qatar, Somalia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe

On November 7, Chinese media report­ed that for­mer pri­ma­ry school prin­ci­pal Zhang Longji was exe­cut­ed via lethal injec­tion for rap­ing five girls, age 8 – 12, and sex­u­al­ly molest­ing 17 girls, age 8 – 14. Sun Deshun, for­mer pres­i­dent of China CITIC Bank Corporation Limited, who was con­vict­ed of accept­ing $1 bil­lion yuan ($137 mil­lion) in bribes, was giv­en a sus­pend­ed death sen­tence by the Intermediate People’s Court in Jinan on November 10. If no new crimes are…

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Nov 01, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: Algeria, Belarus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam

On October 23, 2023, 38 indi­vid­u­als were sen­tenced to death for the mob killing of Jamal Ben Ismail, who had been mis­tak­en­ly iden­ti­fied as the arson­ist respon­si­ble for the August 2021 fires that killed 90 peo­ple in the north­west region. Despite the death sen­tences, all pris­on­ers will be resen­tenced to life impris­on­ment due to the nation­wide mora­to­ri­um in place since 1993 when the last executions…

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Oct 12, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Vietnam

October 10, 2023 marked the 21st World Day Against the Death Penalty. Regarding this year’s theme,​“The Death Penalty, an Irreversible Torture,” Raphaël Chenuil Hazan, exec­u­tive direc­tor of France-based abo­li­tion­ist group EPCM, said​“Today, we no longer need to demon­strate to any­one that the death penal­ty is a sophis­ti­cat­ed form of tor­ture, both in the phase of sen­tenc­ing or inves­ti­ga­tion (where phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture is often used to obtain…

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Sep 06, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday International Roundup: China, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, and Vietnam

On August 4, a South Korean nation­al con­vict­ed of drug-traf­­fick­­ing was exe­cut­ed in China, accord­ing to South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who added dur­ing a press con­fer­ence that this exe­cu­tion was​“unre­lat­ed to the cur­rent bilat­er­al rela­tions” between the two nations. This was the first time a South Korean nation­al was exe­cut­ed in China for drug-traf­­fick­­ing since 2014, when four…

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Aug 02, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday’s International Roundup: Bangladesh, China, Ghana, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore

On July 25, 2023, Ghana’s par­lia­ment vot­ed to abol­ish the death penal­ty. Although the death penal­ty would remain in the con­sti­tu­tion for acts of trea­son, the new law would remove the death penal­ty as pos­si­ble pun­ish­ment for mur­der, geno­cide, pira­cy, and smug­gling. The cur­rent 176 death row pris­on­ers, includ­ing six women, would have their sen­tences com­mut­ed to life in prison. Last year sev­en peo­ple were sen­tenced to death despite Ghana not hav­ing car­ried out an…

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Jul 05, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday’s International Roundup: China, Egypt, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and UAE

A total of 68 exe­cu­tions have occurred in Saudi Arabia this year, with more than 20 exe­cu­tions relat­ing to ter­ror­ism charges occur­ring since ear­ly May, accord­ing to Agence France-Presse. On July 3, five men, includ­ing one Egyptian nation­al, were exe­cut­ed for a dead­ly attack on a house of wor­ship in the Al-Ahsa gov­er­norate, result­ing in five dead and sev­er­al injured. On June 25, two Yemeni nation­als were exe­cut­ed on ter­ror­ism charges, and on June 12, three Saudi men…

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Jun 07, 2023

Worldwide Wednesday’s International Roundup: Zimbabwe, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, Iran, and Saudi Arabia

On March 23, Zimbabwe’s par­lia­ment passed a new​“Patriotic Bill” which car­ries the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death sen­tence for non-vio­­lent crimes in vio­la­tion of the​“most seri­ous crimes” inter­na­tion­al legal stan­dard. The law will pun­ish cit­i­zens whose activ­i­ties​“will­ful­ly dam­age the sov­er­eign­ty and nation­al inter­est of Zimbabwe,” includ­ing boy­cotts, sanc­tions, and any act con­sid­ered​“sub­ver­sion” by the state. Depending on the offense, punishments include…